Crossing Stars

by Nicole Williams

  He’d misinterpreted the reason my face had gone blank. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be a part of his future, but I had something to work out in mine before we could be together. “There’s something I need to tell you.” I had to set down my hot chocolate.

  Rylan set down his cup of coffee as well. “What is it?” He squared himself in front of me. “Because if I can figure out a way to up and walk away from becoming the next Irish mob boss in the second largest city in the country, I’m sure we can work out whatever else we have to.”

  I couldn’t stall. If I stalled, I wouldn’t tell him. The only amount of stalling I gave myself was sucking in a breath. “I’m engaged.”

  Rylan staggered back a step, confusion and betrayal shadowing his face.

  I cursed myself for not stalling long enough to select the right words. “I mean, not in the way it counts. He never asked, and I never accepted. It was more of an . . . arranged thing.”

  Relief bled through Rylan’s face, the wrinkles of doubt erasing . . . only to be replaced by ones of rage. “Your father is forcing you to marry someone?” His words were rough and sharp.

  “He’s going to try,” I clarified.

  That did little to appease Rylan. He slapped the top of the table. “Who?”

  Instead of flinching, I slipped forward. I knew his anger—I’d felt his anger, and I shared it right now just talking about the whole thing. I wouldn’t back away from it. “The man from that night at the White Party. Constantine—”

  “Lombarti.” Rylan spit the word like it was poison in his mouth.

  “You know him?”

  “I know of him. I’d never seen him before, but his reputation spreads to the corners of the criminal world.” Rylan’s hand clenched on the back of a chair.

  When his knuckles went white, I wondered which would break first: his bones or the chair. I covered his hand with mine, and it loosened almost immediately. “I no more want to marry him than you want to take over for your father.” Squeezing his hand, I smiled at him. “So let’s figure something out. Let’s be a galaxy away before they even realize we’re gone.”

  Rylan’s gaze cut to mine. “You want to run away?”

  I gave myself the span of a breath to double check. “I want to run far away.”

  He watched me closely, waiting to discover the slightest bit of doubt. When he didn’t, he dropped his head. “You should have let me shoot him.”

  I bit my lip to contain my smile. “That only would have solved one problem and created a much larger one.”

  “How’s that?”

  I lowered my head until it was in line with his. “I’d have lost you.”

  A smile twisted into place. “Then you would have been rid of two problems.”

  Since the initial shock of my arranged engagement had passed, I pressed on. Time had never been a luxury Rylan and I had. “So? I’m running away from home to find a new one. Are you coming with me? Or are you going to keep plotting ways to torture Constantine Lombarti?”

  Rylan’s green eyes almost glowed. “My home is at your side. I go where you go.”

  His words made me want to run into his arms and never let go—our bones would be crumbling to dust before I’d had my fill, no doubt—but I stayed where I was. Our words had committed us to escaping, and our actions had to fall in behind. My throat was dry from the mere idea of it, but I’d never felt so exhilarated . . . or so petrified. “How should we do it?”

  Rylan stared at the window, almost like a plan was being scrolled out for him. “We’ll have to go far. We’ll have to leave fast and leave no trace unless we want to be looking over our shoulders the rest of our lives. We’ll need an ironclad plan. Something better than your father and mine together could come up with.”

  I wasn’t a fraction of a tenth as calculating as my father, and Rylan might have known the business, but he wasn’t as merciless as his father. If we needed a plan even better than the two of them could come up with, we were already on an uneven playing field. How could two people who refused to stoop to the levels of their opponents ever hope to crawl past them undetected?

  “How will we come up with a plan like this?”

  “I’m already halfway there,” he said, his eyes never leaving the windows. “I’ve got a few more details to iron out, but the skeleton of it’s already in place.”

  I raised my cup of hot chocolate to my mouth and raised an eyebrow. “You were expecting I’d want to run away with you?”

  “More like hoping,” he replied, not a hint of chagrin on his face.

  “When can we leave?”

  His forehead creased with amusement. “When do you want to leave?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  When he glanced at me to see if I was serious, I shrugged. Yes, I’d miss some things about the life I’d lived for eighteen years: Mrs. Bailey, Serena, Luca, my mom . . . even my father. But they weren’t enough to keep me chained to this life for another eighty years. I wouldn’t miss the house arrest. I wouldn’t miss realizing my house had been paid for in blood. I wouldn’t miss feeling like I had a target on the back of my head. I wouldn’t miss the hate, violence, and murder. I’d lived the majority of my life in one square mile. It was time to explore what else was out there.

  “It won’t be tomorrow, but it will be soon.”

  “How soon?” I pressed.

  He couldn’t seem to decide what he was more: annoyed or amused. “As soon as we can and not a moment sooner.” My eyebrows pulled together, so he went on. “I will not, in an effort to speed things up, put your life at risk. I will not let haste be the reason I lose you.”

  I paced around the table. Now that I’d committed to escaping, I couldn’t imagine waiting days or weeks to actually do it. Waiting around seemed more dangerous than actually running. “We’re adults, Rylan. Perfectly capable of spreading our wings and flying away. It’s not like they’re going to send out Amber Alerts and have every cop this side of the Mississippi looking for us.”

  Rylan looked at me as if I was the child I was telling him I wasn’t. “No, the cops won’t be looking for us . . . but we’ll wish it was them instead of who’ll come at us if we don’t do this right, Jay. Instead of the police, we’ll have every man in your father’s circle and every man in my father’s circle searching for us. They’ll turn over every boulder, stone, and pebble until they find us, and when they do . . . they sure as hell won’t return us to our families. There’s only one way to deal with a traitor, and I’m guessing you’ve heard enough stories to guess what that way is.”

  Swallowing the fear I felt rising, I rolled my shoulders back. “We wouldn’t be traitors. We’d be running away, not selling secrets to the enemy.”

  “We’d be the very definition of a traitor. You should know there’s no way of leaving this life. The only way to escape it is death. So running away would be our first mark against us. The next would be who we were running away with. Our families would likely rather see their children marry chimpanzees than a member of the other side. That reason, right there, might be our most dangerous one.” He glared at the table like he wanted to take an axe to it. He spoke without stopping to take a breath, his words flowing together in one giant sentence. “But you and I are heirs to two of the largest crime syndicates around. My father expects me to run it one day, and your father expects to run it through your future husband. Running away and leaving both of their empires without an heir will be like declaring anarchy. Every just-initiated Cleaner or Sweeper would be clamoring their way to the top, certain they’d be the next one to rule. Friends would become enemies, and enemies would become exterminators. What we’re about to do won’t only affect us. It’ll trickle down to everyone in our two worlds. Are you ready for that?”

  The realization made me collapse into the closest chair. “It sounds like you’ve got some hesitations.”

  His head flicked from side to side. “I’ve had time to think this through, all the angles of it, and I’m ready, but you need
to see the whole picture before you agree to do this. We’ll risk the lives of all the people we’ve come to know as extended family. We’ll risk the lives of all the people we come in contact with in the future. We’ll risk our own lives. The cost for running away is exorbitant. Are you sure you’re ready to pay it?”

  Curling my knees into my chest, I wrapped my arms around my legs and hung my head. “I didn’t choose this life, but I can choose to escape it. I’m ready to pay whatever price it costs to leave.”

  “You’re—”

  “I’m sure.” I tilted my face up so he could see how sure I was. Yes, it was hard to accept the price, but I was sure of what I was buying. Freedom. And Rylan. I couldn’t imagine a price I wouldn’t pay for that.

  He nodded then was lost to his thoughts for a moment. “I’ll try to get everything worked out this week, but let’s meet a week from today to go over everything and make sure you’re still ready to do this.”

  “I’m not going to change my mind.” I was irritated that he doubted and questioned me, although I knew the reasons for it. He didn’t want me to make a mistake I’d pay for with my life.

  “Good. Because once you leave, you can never come back, Jay.”

  My eyes trailed around the room before landing on him. “What is there to want to come back to?”

  A look passed between us, one that told me he knew exactly what I meant. “Give me a week, and I’ll have the rest of this planned.”

  “And we can leave next week?” I asked hopefully.

  “We will talk about leaving next week, and we will leave a week or two after that.”

  “We’re talking about it now.”

  “A plan of this magnitude requires plenty of talking,” he replied.

  “And yet there’s a thing known as too much talk and too little action.” I lowered my head into my knees again to keep my amusement hidden.

  With Rylan and me, our time was measured in heavy and light moments with very little in between. Our conversations were either life and death or teasing each other about the most trivial things. It was what I guessed I’d miss most about him if I lost him—the simple, light moments. Being around him was the closet I’d felt to normal since the day I’d grasped who my father really was.

  “Good thing I’m a man of action then.” Rylan shoved back from the table with a smirk.

  “So where are we meeting next week? Are you planning on stuffing yourself in a suitcase again?” I matched his smirk.

  He gave me a humorless smile before downing what was left of his coffee. “No, I’ve already asked too much of Jane by having her sneak me in here today.”

  My eyebrows pulled together when I heard him call her by her first name. She’d been Mrs. Bailey to me for so long, I’d almost forgotten her first name.

  “There’s an old warehouse down by the lake. The Line cuts right through it, which is probably why, on the rare occasions when our fathers need to get together to discuss the rules of war or whatever bullshit they do, they choose the warehouse to convene. Neither one has to cross The Line to get business done.”

  I nodded. “I know the place, but why are you so concerned about meeting where you can stay on your side and I can stay on mine? Afraid I’m going to whack you if you step a toe over?”

  He had the good grace not to roll his eyes. “No, but I am afraid we might be followed, even if we’re careful. If that’s the case, I don’t want to be responsible for sparking a firefight with you caught in the middle. At least if we’re both toeing The Line, both sides will think twice before pulling a weapon and firing.”

  “You really have thought this out, haven’t you?”

  “It’s the only thing I’ve thought about this past month other than you.” He settled in the chair beside me and scooted closer. “Do you think you’ll be able to get out, undetected, next week?”

  It was probably a hundred times easier for Rylan to sneak out than it was for me, but I would find a way. “I can.”

  “Are you sure?” He studied my face. “Because if you don’t think you can, or if you think it will be overly difficult, I’ll find a way to come back. I won’t include Jane, but I’ll find a way.”

  My head shook adamantly. I wouldn’t risk Rylan stepping foot on my father’s property again. “I can get out.”

  He nodded as his hands slipped around my legs. “Okay. Ten o’clock next week at the old warehouse. It’s a date.”

  “An abandoned, rat-infested warehouse where our fathers meet to beat their chests at one another. How romantic.” My hands slipped to his, and I wondered if I could let go when the time came. I didn’t feel like I could.

  “Once we’re away from here, I’ll make it up to you.”

  My pinky wrapped around his. “You already have.”

  We stayed like that for a minute. I could feel the last few grains of sand about to trickle from the hourglass. Our time was nearly up. When he sighed and moved to rise, my pinky curled deeper around his.

  “Mrs. Bailey. How is she involved? Why did she sneak you in?” I’d been so preoccupied with everything else we’d been discussing, I’d forgotten all about my teacher smuggling both my sworn enemy and the man I cared about in in a suitcase.

  He let out another sigh, this one longer. “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “Will you stop asking me if I’m sure? Stop treating me like everyone else who thinks I’m incapable of thinking for myself.” Years of repressed anger flared at him.

  Again, he appraised me like he wasn’t sure if he’d rather kiss me or step away from me, and again, that look made my stomach tighten. I knew exactly which of those options I preferred.

  He didn’t do either. Instead, he answered me. “Jane worked for the Morans.”

  “JANE . . . AS IN Mrs. Bailey?” I was sure I’d heard him wrong. Certain I’d misunderstood.

  “Yes, Jane Bailey worked for the Morans.”

  My head fell back, but as the room began to spin, I clamped my eyes shut. “She couldn’t have. She’s been with us for over a decade. My father did so many checks on her background, he probably knows what her first word was. He trusted her . . . I trusted her.”

  He was quiet for a moment, letting me have a second to process what he’d said. In the background, I heard Mrs. Bailey lecture on physics. I felt ill, physically and mentally, when I realized the person who’d been one of my most trusted confidants for over ten years was someone who’d been hired by the enemy.

  “My father knew that after the first tutor was killed making an attempt on your life, your father’s screening process would be amped up,” Rylan said. “So when Mrs. Bailey got the job, she wasn’t working for the Morans yet. That came after she was hired.”

  “That should probably make me feel better, but it doesn’t.” My voice echoed in my ears, sounding far-off and almost foreign. I’d opened Pandora’s Box when I let Rylan into my life, and the secrets just kept bursting out, never giving me a chance to come to peace with the one prior. At some point, Mrs. Bailey had made an agreement with Patrick Moran to end my life. Since I was still breathing, something must have changed or gone awry, but it didn’t ease the betrayal. “How much did your father pay her? What did he promise?”

  “It was less about what he promised to pay her, and more about what he held as collateral.” Rylan’s voice sounded just as far off. With my eyes closed, I couldn’t tell where he was in the room. He could have been an inch above me or stuffed in the corner across the room.

  “What kind of collateral?” I hoped it was good. I prayed that the woman I’d trusted more than my own parents had had something held above her head that would help me understand why she’d agree to shoot me in the back of mine.

  “Her husband.”

  My eyes flashed open. “Her husband?”

  As it turned out, he was right in front of me, concern and pain written on his face. “When my dad found out who’d been hired as your new tutor, he found out who her family was. With your tutor before her, the guy wh
o tried to . . .” His eyes flashed, a storm passing through them. “He’d been my dad’s too, but all Dad had had to do was threaten his life. To blackmail a man, you threaten his life. To threaten a woman, you threaten her family. That’s his policy, and that was exactly what he did.”

  “When was she supposed to kill me?”

  “About a year or so after she’d been hired. Just long enough to gain your family’s trust.”

  She’d gained my trust far before that. She’d had my trust since she showed up to class with a bouquet of tulips on my sixth birthday. I’d been so thrilled by the gift, I practically leapt into her arms to throw mine around her. Those two tears that had slipped from her eyes that morning had a whole different meaning now.

  “And they’ve held her husband this entire time?” I wondered what I’d do if someone bribed me with Rylan’s life. My answer disturbed me, so I shoved it aside.

  “It isn’t exactly a meaningful threat if she got to come home to her husband every night.” Rylan looked about as uneasy and anguished as I felt, but I appreciated him telling me the truth instead of sheltering me from it like so many had before.

  “So what happened? Something must have gone wrong.” That was why I was still here, reeling from the what-ifs.

  “She didn’t do it.” Rylan’s gaze flickered away.

  “And her husband?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  He shifted his weight, still unable to look at me. “They killed him.”

  My chair wobbled . . . or was that me? Mrs. Bailey had exchanged her husband’s life for mine. I had to choke back the scream that wanted to erupt. It wasn’t only the walls that had been paid for in blood—my own life had as well. Death was all around me, just waiting for its opportunity. How many more lives would mine cost? I wouldn’t wait around to find out.

  “Why was your father so hell bent on seeing me dead? I was a child, barely old enough to ride a bike—hardly a threat. Why did he make it his mission to kill me?” I kept my voice down just enough so Mrs. Bailey wouldn’t hear me, but I was still loud enough to feel a release. I was so angry—I needed to destroy something. The sheer power of my emotions was alarming. I’d never felt them so intensely, and I wasn’t prepared to channel them yet. My tea cup and saucer went flying across the room, shattering against one of the windows. Rivulets of muddy brown liquid trailed down the glass to puddle on the floor.